September 23, 2008

GT News: PGN Employee Arrested

The worker and his wife are accused by authorities of stealing a child to be given up for adoption.

Ericka Marroquin, Siglo 21 | ericka.marroquin @ sigloxxi.com

Link: http://www.sigloxxi.com/noticias/23308

Oscar Geovanny Galicia Guerra, 36, an employee of the Attorney General's Office (PGN), was arrested yesterday by security forces and the Public Ministry (MP) accused of the crime of child abduction.
According to prosecutors, from a few months ago to investigate Galicia Guerra, like other employees of the institution, on suspicion of integrating a network of kdnappers who handled the adoption by taking advantage of their positions.

Agents of the Criminal Investigation Division (DINC) of the National Civil Police (PNC) captured Galicia Guerra in the 4th. and 4th Avenue. street from the zona 9, when carried in her arms a child stolen from a private hogar on Sept. 7, and who is suspected, "negotiated" for the adoption.
The wife of the detainee could not be apprehended so that investigations are continuing to trace his whereabouts.

There was a cameraman
Abraham Baca, a spokesman for PGN, confirmed that Galicia works in the unit since May 3 1993, serving as a cameraman for the Attorney General on Children. His job was to document cases of adoption and the rescue of minors.

"He asked for permission to miss today (yesterday) to go to work, because he would go to the Civil Registry to register the child," said Baca, who said no official information on the causes of the detention of the worker.

Galicia refrained from declaring any statements after his capture, but said the mother of the child, who had made the complaint of theft of her daughter, had regretted giving her up for adoption, so she decided to "return to the courts" .

Up until Dec. 31, 2007, PGN was the institution responsible for examining cases of adoptions in the country. According to records of the institution itself, since 1997 gave up for adoption 30 thousand 568 children, whose main destination was the United States.
On April 26 this institution ruled favorably 650 records of children who left the country without being subjected to the process of regularization (comparison with the biological mother), referred to in Article 57 of the Adoption Act.

Posted by Marie, Guatadopt.com

Posted by Marie at September 23, 2008 04:34 AM

Comments

I am glad to see positive movement in the fight to stop corruption. I hope if Guerra is guilty that the children and families involved will finally have peace.

Posted by: laura at September 23, 2008 10:13 AM

This is another proof of how the press distorts everything. According to what the adviser to the Attorney General told me, the PGN worker got the baby from the baby's mother, planning to raise the child as his own and went to the RENAP to record the birth stating that he was his child, born to his wife. The grandmother of the baby learned of what her daughter did and filed criminal charges against the PGN worker. True, he did wrong when he recorded that child as his son, but that is very different from "the PGN stealing children for illegal adoptions". And the article, not happy with smearing all the PGN workers, casts doubts over the already approved adoptions, stating that they are illegal, because “were approved without the birth mother interviews, stated in article 57 of the Adoption Law “, despite that such article neither mentions the birth mothers nor the need to interview them in order to approve the adoptions.

If adoptions really were easier, Guatemalans would adopt more, but any person who has tried to adopt in Guatemala knows that it is an uphill battle, and now it is even worse, when the family who wants to adopt has to disclose all their financial information to unknown people who can use it later for other purposes, like kidnappings or extortions. That a PGN worker has to resort to the illegal recording of a child in order to adopt, only speaks volumes of how difficult the adoption system is, even to Guatemalans who are well connected.

Susana Luarca

Posted by: Susana Luarca at September 24, 2008 06:17 AM

Susana, please tell me you are not condoning the crime this man committed...there is no excuse for what he did, he broke the law. Period.

Posted by: Mariale at September 24, 2008 08:06 AM

Susana is not condoning what he did. She clearly states that he did wrong in her first paragraph. What she is saying is that the PRESS makes everything to be so much worse. The way the article read to me is that there are several in PGN that have been kidnapping babies. All she was doing was explaining what happened.

Posted by: Terri at September 24, 2008 08:54 AM

By now PAP's realize that corruption runs ramped in Guatemala and people are desperately trying to give the chlidren a home and bright future. It's a shame they can't finalize the pending "grandfathered" cases, so that the slate can be cleaned, and new adoptions can be initated. I guess the next thing we will hear is that the RENAP is also corrupt, since they seem to be the agency holding up the birth certificates for those of us who have finally made it out of PGN. Why would anyone be suprised with story of the PGN worker, so far, it just seems to be par for the course?

Posted by: another distressed pap at September 24, 2008 08:59 AM

The authorities say that the child was stolen to be given up for adoption. I assume they are talking about a domestic adoption. Didn't they close " de facto " the international adoptions to stop the corruption? Didn't they close " de facto " the international adoptions because of the kidnapping of the children with the purpose of selling them to the adopting couple from foreign Countries? So, now there is a child allegedly stolen or kidnapped to be given up for adoption to a domestic couple? According to the people and authorities involved in the approval of the Ortega Law, with the new procedure in place the corruption would have ended!!! What happened unicef, DOS and guatemalan authorities? The law that you wanted isn't working now? The corruption is still there? What a bunch of B.S.. Vince and Gina.